Hello,
we are firefighter who wants to buy a new Land Rover Defender 90 HARD TOP.

We have an issue that we want to resolve. Is there any option on a new Defender to have a hydraulic pump drive on the gearbox ike on the old Defenders?

Thanks in advance for every help.

Ciao

 

Sounds like you are referring to a power take off (PTO) on the transfer case. There is no provision for a PTO on the new defender. There would have to be some serious custom fabrication required to create the ability to make this happen.

 

Thanks for your reply.
PTO is exactly what we are looking for.
Too bad that they did not make any provision This options was very useful on old Defenders. What do you have in mind for serious custom fabrication?

 

Our solution for not mounting hydraulic pumps vice the PTO style drive on aircraft is a Hydraulic PowerPack. Essentially it is a hydraulic motor being driven by an electric motor, with its own small captive reservoir on a pallet style mounting. Gives you a lot of options on where you put it and it works with the motor off. There are loads of aircraft that had such a system, but are being decommissioned (scrapped). Typically the smaller regional commuters had them. Then again the big issue that would crop up is the pathetically small battery the Defender has. It is barely able to cope with a camping situation for a week where you open the door more than once or twice a day (it powers up all 2,500 computers and entertainment and essential gizmo system when you do for 10 minutes (10 amps)). So a supplemental battery would be in order as well, let's say with 5 times the storage capacity. Now when the electric version hits the US market, it could be an excellent choice for this option.

 

It's actually less the battery - which is not really that small - but the heavy draw of the recurring boot of all major systems. The Defender needs a "Camping" mode. We might have something in the works... :-p

 

When I say too small, it is not well matched for its intended use. The draw, even sitting, it to high for the battery capacity. It is not just the Defender. Even my wife's Evoque has issues. Between the two we have had 3 batteries replaced due to the slow death. Lots of people are having the same problem. The batteries get drawn down too low, far too often and making the battery loose capacity over time. A camping mode and a storage mode would be a welcome useful addition. When you design something, you need to balance the ability to charge and provide un-recharged power to not end up with the two tone "your Battery is close to dying" along with the red triangle, warning every couple of weeks.

There are other failings that the design engineers fail to grasp during the design phase. For example. Range Rovers where dying in Airport parking lots, inexplicably. After a week to 10 days they would need a jump. Not one or two, but an epidemic of them. Turns out, if anybody walked by using their key within 50' of their car, it would also wake up the Range Rovers. They would perk up their little electronic ears for a few minutes all powered up in anticipation of un-locking. Well with dozens of people walking around each hour clicking their keys, it would exhaust the batteries with all the false awakenings. This problem is not unique to the Defender or JLR. All the tech , while cool, makes it for a dodgy field vehicle long term. So I have two items I have had to add, a solar panel set up and a portable power unit. One extends the life so death of the battery does not happen so quickly, the other powers items and provides back-charge for the car battery. I had to do the same for the Range Rover before this.

In my earlier life, I had a unique speciality derived from the time in the service. I designed what we called "one offs." These were special mission aircraft. Set up to do one or two things in the sneaky Electronic Warfare world. They looked like normal aircraft you might see at airports doing commuter traffic, but they weren't. One of the issues, to play that game is; you need a lot of power. Way more than the engines or the battery can provide at surge demand. I have put as many as 6 APU's (auxiliary power units) into the aircraft to provide the needed extra juice. So not exactly my first rodeo dealing with tech and electricity

 

Defender can go into sleep (telematics too) but still drains battery.
Charging algorithm is very jumpy, I see voltage going during trips from 14.4 to 12.6 and sometimes it's not even charging at all, I'd say our batteries won't last more than 3-4 years.
In comparison my old XC90 battery was replaced at the age 12 years and mostly due to fact that I had to use small refrigerator.